Illustration by remapstudio on Unsplash

A sermon on Matthew 2:1-12
by Rev. Chris Bohnhoff

Will you pray with me? God of all, of the subtle and the blatant, we give thanks for this space to make new meaning from this mysterious story of Herod and the Magi from our sacred history. Open our ears and our imaginations, we pray, and help us to find ways to be like the Magi, conjuring new ways to show our devotion to holy mystery while interrupting the violent dehumanization in our midst. Amen.

I’ve never been much of a podcast person. But for a range of reasons that we could talk about over coffee hour sometime if you’re interested, this year I’ve resolved to change that. Earlier this week, I was listening to my current favorite podcast, one that I find to be a great blend of dorkiness, humor, and learning. The topic was gut health: probiotics and prebiotics, fiber, and how gut health has been found to link to all kinds of other things in the body. Fascinating! Here are two fun facts that I took away from the show.

First, there are more neurons connecting the brain to the stomach than there are in the brain stem. Isn’t that crazy?!

Second, roughly 90% of a person’s serotonin – the neurotransmitting happiness chemical that is involved with regulation of mood, sleep, digestion, and cognition, to name just a few – is produced in the digestive tract.

Scientists are far from understanding the extent of the brain’s connection to the gut, or the complexities of the gut’s microbiome. But current science reveals that those brain/gut connections are far more extensive than Western medicine has known or acknowledged. Year by year, we are learning how flawed the conceptual separation of body and mind really is. And it seems the more we learn, the more we understand that the body is an extension of the brain, not just some meat suit that carries our brain around.

Although the pop culture version of the Epiphany story has three kings visiting the baby Jesus, a more accurate reading reveals an unknown number not of kings, but of Magi: scientists, stargazers, readers of patterns in the heavens adept in a science unknown in the Bible’s landscape. They had traveled from present-day Iran – a months-long journey – to follow up on the discovery of a star, which they interpreted as heralding the birth of a new king of the Jews.

The text doesn’t have King Herod, the current king of the Jews, installed by the Emperor in Rome, expressing any curiosity about this new wisdom brought by the Magi, only fear at that wisdom’s implications for him. But he does act on that foreign wisdom: he makes an underhanded attempt to make the Magi his spies and when that doesn’t work, he orders the murder of every male child in Bethlehem in an attempt to protect his power.

It’s a story of two worldviews: the Magi, finding deep wisdom in the physical world, and Herod and his advisors who found their meaning only in security through force, the wielding and perpetuation of their own power.

They say history repeats itself. This week, just a couple miles from where I live, there was another instance of two colliding worldviews. On one side, my neighbors, unarmed other than their cell phones, out in the cold morning to observe what ICE agents intended to do in their neighborhood. They observed the physical world. They took in the overwhelming numbers climbing from vehicles, the masks, the tactical gear. And, after only a couple minutes elapsed, they saw the human and mechanical wreckage after three shots were fired into a moving car at Renee Nicole Macklin Good, an unarmed woman, their neighbor.

On the other side, federal officials declare Renee Good a domestic terrorist, a woman looking for trouble, this mom keeping an eye out for the safety of her neighbors. The officials survey the scene through the available video evidence and declare that those multiple ICE agents, armed to the teeth, masked, and outside the oversight of any governmental agency or public transparency, they were the victims. They were the ones whose lives were on the line, the ones who needed deadly force to protect themselves from the mom behind the wheel being yelled at by two guys on her block with guns.

Two worldviews. Two ways of knowing. One direct from presence, using the whole body, the gut’s intuition, the lived experience of what is safe and what is not. The other, processed through the brain’s complex implication computer, where we rationalize and downplay our gut’s conclusions, where we overrule what our body says with what culture, expectations, and our bias for maintaining our own reputation and security tells us needs to be true instead.

The Magi did not override their wisdom of the physical world or their dreams that told them not to trust Herod. And that trust saved Mary and Joseph and their child.

Our bodies know safety. Our bodies knew, could feel the danger when they heard George Floyd tell Derek Chauvin that he couldn’t breathe. And our bodies knew, watching those videos from last Wednesday that the officer who shot Renee Good had ceased seeing her humanity, saw only a figure in a law enforcement action calculation, and our bodies knew the danger.

Bodies know safety and its absence. They also know love. In the days since Renee Good’s murder, thousands, tens of thousands of bodies have gathered around the Twin Cities, at 34^th and Portland, at the Whipple Building, at the State Capitol, in Plymouth, to demand that our government fulfill their primary purpose of keeping bodies – all bodies – safe, instead of doing the opposite, which is exactly what we have seen them do over the past five weeks.

But at least as importantly, bodies have gathered to affirm their commitment to love each other. They’ve affirmed that Minnesota is a place where we care for each other, and where we are committed to working towards a time when all bodies are safe, all bodies are valued, and all bodies are afforded the dignity with which they were ascribed at their miraculous creation.

The Magi entered Jerusalem as scientists. They left enlarged, having encountered and adoring the contested, endangered Christ: they perceived through their unique wisdom something precious, something sanctified despite its humble circumstances, and they cared for the body that they found.

Beloved family, bodies are on the line today. ICE agents camp out at school bus stops throughout the metro. Families hide in their homes afraid to even play in their backyards, let alone worship, shop, work, or learn. Our faith calls us to protect and care for these bodies. These bodies, too, are the body of Christ. May we remember, may we witness, and may we practice love. Amen.